


D Is For A Dark And Stormy Night

by mydogwatson



Series: A Baker Street Alphabet [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Hiatus angst, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-20
Updated: 2013-10-20
Packaged: 2017-12-30 00:01:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1011625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mydogwatson/pseuds/mydogwatson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two stormy nights.  Two lonely men.</p>
            </blockquote>





	D Is For A Dark And Stormy Night

**Author's Note:**

> Don't think I have mentioned on this series yet that I do not actually own John and/or Sherlock. That continues to make me rather sad.  
> Also I should mention that my credo is "Canon? What canon?" My canon is the only one I am truly faithful to. And BTW, that will continue no matter what happens in Season 3!
> 
> I do own the truly wonderful Boston Terrier, Watson of Baker Street, and he turns six years old today so this is dedicated to him.

We are dying, we are dying.  
Piecemeal our bodies are dying…  
And our soul cowers naked in the dark rain.  
-D.H. Lawrence

1

The plummy voice of the BBC weather forecaster droned on and on about the ferocity of the storm that was raging across a good part of Britain, hitting the capital city especially hard. Various experts were called in to comment on the destructive force of the wind, the torrent of rain and the lightening strikes that had caused three fires thus far.

All in all, listening to the grim details [which were somehow made to sound rather more cheerful than they really should have], it was not difficult to imagine that what was happening outside was a precursor of some disaster of biblical proportions. With terrific graphics and perky commentary thrown in gratis.

Frankly, John Watson could not be arsed to care. In truth, he was more than a little weary of the whole Apocalypse thing, having been through the end of the world once already, nearly six months ago now. There had been no thunder or rain or wind on that occasion. In fact, it had been a rather pleasant sunny day. A bright sunshine that allowed him to watch the whole cataclysm unfold in front of him as he stood on the pavement outside St. Barts.

So since as far as he was concerned the world crashed and burned that day, why should he care at all about this storm?

Or about anything else for that matter?

His attitude was a source of varying degrees of sorrow, anger, disdain, or pity, depending upon who was lecturing him at the time. It was rather funny, in his opinion, how they all continued to think he was actually listening to anything they said. On most days, it was all he could do to not call each and every one of them an idiot and walk away.

But John Watson was a polite man and so he merely sipped the tea or the lager, depending upon the location of the lecture, and nodded occasionally. Thankfully, the occasions when someone felt it necessary to tell him it was time to move on were growing fewer each week.

Very soon, he felt sure, no one would be left who wanted to bother. He could hardly wait.

Another explosion of thunder shook the building. It was almost like being back in the war. Maybe there would be a direct hit on the building and all his problems would be over. And despite what he’d believed since age twelve, maybe there actually was an afterlife. He rather hoped so, because there were a couple of questions he would like to ask one deceased consulting detective.

He was alone in the flat, of course, because he always was. That was the way he preferred it. Since the funeral, no one had come into 221B. He would sit in Mrs. Hudson’s kitchen for tea or he would walk around the corner to the pub to meet Lestrade for an uncomfortable beer, but no one came into the flat. [The meetings with Lestrade were uncomfortable because, although the inspector had apologized more than once for doubting, John found it impossible to forget. Or forgive.] Mostly the pub meet ups consisted of Lestrade rambling on about whatever case he was trying to clear. //Not so easy without him, is it?// John often thought those words, but never said them aloud.

Tonight he was actually alone in the whole building, as Mrs. Hudson had chosen this weekend to visit her sister. Well, that was a good thing, because if all the dire warnings of the weather forecaster came true, the good woman would be with a loved one when disaster struck.

John had carried a kitchen chair over to the window for a better view of the storm. He rather enjoyed watching the fierce lightning zigzag across the black sky. The skull was perched on the window ledge, next to a can of lager, and occasionally John would comment on a particularly vivid flash. The skull mostly ignored him, so it was almost like having the world’s only consulting detective sitting next to him. Almost.

He amused himself for a time with the vision of Sherlock throwing a temper tantrum in heaven and causing the earth to shake with rolling cracks of thunder. That man could do it, if anybody could.

The skull roused itself to chastise him for such silliness. For far from the first time John felt that the skull shared more than one personality trait with Sherlock.

Suddenly the room went black; the whole world outside the window went black as well. Luckily, John had anticipated this possibility [he had been a soldier, after all] and so he was able to light a candle immediately.

He stood up and leaned his forehead against the window to stare into the darkness. “You know,” he said softly, “tonight would be a really good time for that miracle I talked about. Remember that? It would suit your sense of the bloody dramatic if you could swirl in from the rain and the wind and lightning. Don’t bother knocking or anything. Just crash the door open and come in. Shout to me. //John, we have a case!// And off we’d go. It would be such an adventure.”

He could feel the rain hitting against the window.

John raised one hand and pressed it to the glass.

“Please, Sherlock,” he whispered. “I’m so tired of the blackness.”

2

He was finding Moscow a depressing city even on the sunniest of days. When a powerful storm was raging across the city, as was happening now, it was almost unbearable. The tiny hotel room smelled of cabbage and too many past occupants. At another time, he would have enjoyed deducing all those previous visitors, uncovering all their dirty little secrets. But now he couldn’t be bothered. Since the electricity had flickered and died, all Sherlock could do was huddle on the slightly sticky window seat and watch the rain.

His head still pounded after suffering a rather severe blow from the butt of some cheap Russian pistol the day before. He pulled his legs up to his chest, wrapped both arms around them, and rested his chin on his knees.

This, he thought, was what lonely felt like.

It was not an emotion that sat very easily within him. But above all else, Sherlock thought of himself as a rational man and it would defy logic to deny what was so painfully obvious. Sherlock Holmes no longer knew how to be alone.

This was the worst night of the past six months.

Well, one of the worst. He remembered the night in London after watching Mrs. Hudson and John at his ‘grave’. He’d been hiding in a dismal room near St.Pancras station and all that he could think of was the sight of John Watson standing at the headstone. Watching John break down. When he did the soldier’s turn and marched away, it took every bit of self-control Sherlock possessed to just stand there and watch him go. But he had to do that and then he had to go back to that horrid room for another week until he could leave London.  
At least on that night there was still a sense of distance from all that had happened. A sense that none of it was quite real. But now, six months later, the reality of this life was a dismal and constant pounding inside his head and his chest.

Sherlock watched the dirty water that was coursing down the street outside the hotel.

He was so very tired, exhausted in a way that was entirely foreign to a man used to running around London for days on end when a case was hot. This weariness was deep in his bones and was never vanquished by the few hours of restless sleep he managed to snatch most nights.

Things were so bad that for the first time he was beginning to think that maybe this whole venture was doomed to fail. He would never vanquish the rest of Moriarty’s web, never make John and the others safe, never be able to return to Baker Street. Never see John again.

Never tell his friend how very much he meant to him.

Sherlock raised a hand and rubbed at his scalp fiercely, trying to delete all the negative thoughts. If he became convinced that he could not win, that he could never go home again, what would be the point of carrying on? Why shouldn’t he just put the barrel of the gun into his mouth and pull the trigger? Or go drown himself in the nearest river. Or find a tall building…

He slammed a palm into his forehead.

//No, stop thinking that way. You have to succeed, you have to finish this and go home. You have to sit again in 221B and drink tea with John and play the Strad, and do so much more.//

So much more.

A sudden explosion of thunder rolled across the city like the roar of some ancient god. Maybe it was a good sign.

Sherlock lifted his hand and pressed it against the glass. “Don’t forget me, John“ he whispered. “I will come home.”

He sat there for a very long time as the storm went on.

fini


End file.
